Here’s how publishers can make the most of Facebook’s comeback

Have you noticed that Facebook is making a bit of a comeback for publishers?

There have been several stories over the last few weeks that have made mention that publishers’ content is showing up more and more in Facebook’s algorithm. In fact, this story from The Press Gazette noted that some of the largest sites in the U.S. saw upwards of a 74 percent increase in referral traffic in March compared year over year.

Who knows if this will change tomorrow, but I’d take advantage of the resurgence. Here are a few things I see working right now on the platform for publishers:

1. Text overlay is big

In example after example, I’m seeing higher reach, impressions and engagement for posts that aren’t just a headline and a post message.

Text overlay — where the headline or a form of it — is on top of the image, is delivering nice engagement results for publishers.

An example of a text overlay I used for a recent LinkedIn post

The key is that the image pops, the headline is inviting and that your caption text offers some detail. Story tell a little bit in the caption with a few paragraphs outlining what’s inside the story. This is a good place to use alternative story formats and apply them to your caption.

Here are a few ideas:

A checklist of three things to know from a school board meeting story
Putting an event profile into a calendar format in your caption: Name of event, where, details and ticket cost.
Provide three answers to questions that are addressed in your story (this needs to be more FAQ style than really long, complicated answers).

When you do this approach simply put the link to the story in the caption or the first comment.

2. Do this with paid campaigns

If you’re running a paid audience campaign on Facebook, pick a few stories to test to start with. This will provide you a sense of what is going to get engagement.

But once you figure out what’s working, you don’t necessarily have to do new stories every month. Case in point, for the H-Town Dads site I run in Houston, we’ve found that three specific stories (they are evergreen) perform incredibly well every single week. In fact one story in particular does so much traffic, it’s where more than 70 percent of our spend goes every month.

This is that story that outperforms every week, also another text overlay example

Yes, new stories can work too, but if you pick the right targeting and the audience is large enough, you don’t necessarily have to re-invent the wheel every week.

A reminder: We still are seeing positive results from publishers who are using Facebook to drive newsletter sign-ups through using your content as an avenue to get emails through a Facebook form fill. We’re seeing 50 cents-$1 cost per leads. A great investment to grow your newsletter subscriber base.

3. Groups are still hot

Facebook continues to signal that content in Groups will get love in their algorithm.

Facebook favors content that creates conversations and that’s really the purpose of Groups. They are more personal than the overall feed because they are focused on an area a reader has said they are interested in.

So, it’s worth the effort to be part of community Facebook Groups and to be an active participant. That means asking questions and answering them and from time to time sharing a story you or your organization has created that is useful for that group. You can’t treat groups as a place just to get traffic. You can get traffic, but you have to focus first on being a good and valuable member of the group.

We can help you with social media strategy

Let us help you grow your social media audience through creative ideas like these. Email me at david@davidarkinconsulting.com or call/text me today at 832 407 0188.